Some time back I set myself the unexpectedly difficult task of setting poetry to a list of words gathered from readers as well as from my own list of loved words. Words like “passion” and “joy” and “entwine”. This little piece evolved from that list of words and required constant editing because each word seemed to give birth, or shed light on, other words that were connected. It grew, large and unwieldy. What follows is the latest edit of that poem reduced to a manageable size that, I hope, makes sense while staying on task.

So long I waited
My life spent in beautiful surrender
In anticipation
Of you
How I longed
To hold you in my arms
Knowing you existed
Without ever knowing your name
To touch you
Softly
Sensually
To invite you close to me
To feel your heat next to mine
Like a slow fire
With hopeful desire
I waited
To share a lifetime with you
In romantic wonder
With mouthwatering dreams of us
Together
How long I prepared
In fearless devotion
To kiss with passion
and gentle abandon
your exquisitely tender flesh
To taste your delicious spirit
Bathe in your intoxicating soul
To share my heart
With hopeful gratitude

Now you are here
Close to me
Laying right there next to me
Breathing softly
Singing your song with me
I am seduced by the sound of you
Awakened by the scent of you
Your body calling out to me
I reach out
and find you reaching back for me

We touch
and all I dreamed
is made real

Pulses quicken
Fingers entwine
Bodies join
You call out my name
With sweet moaning
Press your body next to mine
With tempered fury
Our souls connection
A perfect union
To light the sky
with joyful passion
Our sacred space
with intense pleasure
Our one heart
with Love
Throughout our days
and into the nights
I offer you love with thoughtful intention
and give myself to you

You are the gift
I never thought I deserved
The treasure of a lifetime
I am yours

The Consequential Life is primarily an Unconscious Path. Shit happens and you instinctualy respond. How you respond dictates where the Path leads you. This is Reactive.

The Intentional Life is a Conscious Path. Shit happens and you choose your response. Other times shit happens because of your choices. Your intention and the choices you make that arise from your intent guide you on the Path. You guessed it, Proactive.

Either method is a choice. We either choose to be aware or we choose to go through life with eyes and mind closed.

Most people live a reactionary life. Here’s a few examples of living a reactionary life while on an unconscious path:

A goat shits on your path. Step in in, rub it in your face, sleep in it, don’t wash it off. “Good things come to those who suffer.”

A goat shits on your path. Make a shit sandwich and eat it in silent gratitude. “What good things?”

A goat shits on your path. Its a sign! A goat has been here. Hang around and pray for its return so it can be sacrificed. “Good things come to those who wait.”

A goat shits on your path. Its a sign! The path is unclean because you have sinned. “Sinners don’t get good things…until they die.”

I’ve known many people who suffered to the end and gained nothing. Known people who turn their backs on the good things in their lives because they can’t believe they either deserve them or that they exist at all. And I’ve never met a person who didn’t feed themselves…. something.

Personally, however, I prefer a proactive/conscious way of living:

When a goat shits on your path I say gather it up, mix it with sand and straw, and make bricks to smooth the path. Or mold menagerie from it, bake them in the sun, and give them as gifts. Or use it in a floral arrangement. Or turn it into incense.

There must be a million great things to do with goat shit and none of them have anything to do with moral causality or a reckoning of the scales.

What it comes down to is this; if you can’t find a good use for it, simply walk around it.

In the end, its a goat doing what a goat does. It shits. And shit happens.